The UK government's National Pupil Database has already been used to combat "abuse of immigration control" - despite ministerial assurances that the collection of pupils’ nationality will not be passed to the border officials.
That is according to a latest Freedom of Information response published by the Department for …

The UK Department for Eduction has enlarged its mega database containing sensitive personal pupil information to nearly 20 million individual records, according to a Freedom of Information response.
The National Pupil Database contains a range of sensitive information dating from the year 2000, including name, postcode, …

Comment
"There is no question of HMRC selling data." That's the promise from Whitehall, which is floating the idea of "sharing" sensitive taxpayer information with private businesses.
It's the latest in a series of attempts from the Tory-led coalition to turn public and not-so-public data into a moneyspinner for UK PLC.
A period of …

Sony has claimed an early victory in the next generation console wars after saying it had sold twice as many consoles in the US during January than its arch-rival Microsoft.
However, Redmond hit back with the claim that it managed to shift more games than Sony over the same period.
This just in: PS4 the #1 selling game …

Can Google’s Chromebook become the laptop platform of choice during 2014? Probably not, but there’s certainly demand for it. According to US market-watcher NPD, during the 11 months from January through November 2013, the platform’s share of the computing device market had risen to 9.6 per cent from just 0.2 per cent in the same …

CES2014
Dell has confirmed its first Chromebook will be coming to the UK, though it’s not yet saying how much the 11.6-inch Google laptop will cost over here.
In the States, the Dell Chromebook 11 is “expected to sell below $300” (£183), the PC giant said today, so you’re probably looking at a retail price over here of £220 to £250, …

Despite all the carping about the slumping PC market, it really wasn't such a bad year for channel computing sales, with devices based on Google technologies pulling ahead as the clear winners.
According to the latest numbers from market analysis firm NPD, overall sales of desktops, notebooks, and tablets through the channel …

Magine TV, the Swedish cloud-based OTT service that threatens to blow a hole through European TV, has signed up smart TV makers LG Electronics, Panasonic, and TP Vision (selling Philips TVs).
The service, described as “cable in the cloud” and sometimes as “Spotify for TV”, has gained well over 500,000 subscribers in Sweden in …

Want a shock? Sales of desktop and notebook PCs during the all-important back-to-school period were actually better than expected, according to the latest figures from research firm the NPD Group.
That doesn't mean the PC market has suddenly leapt off its sickbed and started tap dancing, mind you. The numbers are still …

A few weeks back, Cognitive Networks claimed it was about to cut deals with companies that shipped what amounted to 45 per cent of the smart TVs in the US.
We have since been trying to work out market share combinations to identify those it had signed with. It made the task slightly easier this week by finally unveiling the …

Acer has told investors that it will reduce its emphasis on Windows PCs and laptops over the next few quarters in favor of devices based on operating systems from Microsoft's archrival Google.
The Wall Street Journal reports that that Taiwanese hardware maker plans to grow its "non-Windows business" rapidly, such that Android …

Apple and Samsung's unhappy union could be set to continue as it emerged that the fruity firm still depends on its arch-enemy to supply its display screens.
According to a research note by NPD DisplaySearch, Apple bought more 9.7 inch screen panels from Samsung than it did from LG Display in April and June of this year. These …

Not only are Google's Chromebooks a success, but they are now the fastest-growing segment of the PC industry, according to market research firm NPD Group.
"While we were skeptical initially, I think Chromebooks definitely have found a niche in the marketplace," NPD analyst Stephen Baker told Bloomberg.
Baker says that in the …

Microsoft has received two pieces of good news concerning its not-exactly-barn-burning Windows 8: there are now over 100,000 apps in the Windows 8 app store, and the installed base of Windows 8 has passed that of the late and unlamented Windows Vista.
What's more, that 100,000-app milestore was reached in just eight months – …

At the end of 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove told Parliament that he wanted "to share extracts of data held in the National Pupil Database for a wider range of purposes than possible in order to maximise the value of this rich dataset".
Ultimately, the government wants the private sector to tout "tools and services …

When a company says that it's not worried about a competitor, it's a safe bet that it's worried about a competitor. And when that company is the notoriously close-mouthed Apple and its competitor, Samsung, is about to release a new version of its successful Galaxy S smartphone, you can double-down on that bet.
"At Apple we …

Year-on-year sales of recorded music have risen for the first time since 1999, albeit by a smidgen, according to industry stats.
The business of selling and licensing sound recordings is now 40 per cent smaller than it was pre-Y2K, but in 2012 revenues increased by 0.3 per cent - and that hasn't happened before in this …

The latest research data on US consumer electronics spending from analyst house NPD shows that Apple has a commanding market position, taking 19.9 per cent of all sales in 2012.
The top five companies by spending last year were Apple, Samsung, HP, Sony, and Dell, but of those only Apple and Samsung actually saw their market …

Open ... and Shut
Once upon a time any problem at Microsoft could be magically resolved with a new Windows release. Since Windows Vista, however, that formula hasn't worked. In fact, according to new sales data from NPD Group, it may be getting worse.
In late 2012, departing Microsoft board member Reed Hastings called Microsoft's Surface tablet …

Will 2013 be the year that tablets overtake laptops as the most-shipped type of computer tech? Market watcher NPD DisplaySearch certainly thinks so. It now reckons some 240 million tablets ranging in screen size from 5.6 inches to 13.3 will ship during 2013 - almost 16 per cent more than the 207 million notebooks that will ship …

2012 review
Earlier this year your correspondent was standing tantalisingly close to Matt Smith in the ACTUAL TARDIS - long story, not gonna Facebook it, never gonna tweet it. However, many Brits are happy to noisily ricochet chunks of their private lives across any number of websites and systems, in a year in which the British government …

Don’t expect reasonably priced OLED TVs to hit the market for a fair few years yet. Do, however, expect 4K x 2K Ultra HD LCD TVs to be all the rage in 2013.
So suggests David Hsieh, an analyst at NPD DisplaySearch, a market watcher. He claims to have detected a change in the mood of those two major display manufacturers, …

It was close. We Apple fanbois nearly had to endure an entire week without an iPad rumor, but as the week drew to a close those intrepid rumor-mongers at DigiTimes gifted us with two – in the same brief article, no less – and NPD Display Search added a third.
Rumor #1: According to the ocasionally accurate Taiwanese market …

The idea that Apple is working on some kind of smart TV refuses to die, the notion regularly refreshed by rumour and the occasional soundbite from senior company executives. CEO Tim Cook only last week expressed his “intense interest” in the evolution of the TV in a nudge, nudge, wink, wink interview with US TV channel NBC. …

Analyst firm IDC sees Windows-based tablets winning significant market share away from both Android and iOS eventually, but says it won't happen for another several years yet.
According to the latest figures from the company's Worldwide Tablet Tracker, sales of fondleslabs running Windows 7, Windows 8, and Windows RT will only …

IHS iSuppli, a market watcher, has admitted that its expects world PC sales to fall this year even further than it previously thought they would. Whatever the degree of decline, it will mark the first time global personal computer shipments have fallen in 11 years.
In a discussion of world chip sales posted yesterday, iSuppli …

Microsoft will release the next-generation Xbox console in time for Christmas next year, sources claim.
While World+Dog could come up with a 2013 'Xbox 720' prediction, this latest claim comes by way of "people familiar with the company's plans", according to Bloomberg at least.
The firm has apparently yet to decide whether …

Kludgey, dull screen, audio problems, fraying cloth covers – whatever your beef with Microsoft’s Surface, now’s your chance to get if off your chest.
Microsoft has launched a Surface Owner Feedback Program for new owners of the Redmond fondleslab. You’ll be asked to take part in a survey on your experiences with Surface.
Happy/ …

If you were holding out for a Surface tablet with Windows 8 Pro, Microsoft has confirmed that they will be available in January. Just be sure to bring a bulging wallet.
In a blog post on Thursday, Microsoft Surface general manager Panos Panay revealed that Redmond plans to offer two versions of the Surface running full Windows …

Analysts are lining up to denounce Microsoft's latest OS, claiming Windows 8 has been slow out of the blocks.
The NPD Group estimates that in the four weeks since Microsoft coughed the software it was on 58 per cent of devices sold - compared to the 83 per cent achieved by Windows 7 after its launch.
Stephen Baker, veep at …

Woe to you, Apple fanboy, you may not be able to get your hands on a shiny new iPad Mini because Apple may not be able to ship enough of them to go round.
So says DisplaySearch, a market watcher, which reckons supply will be constrained by LCD panel makers’ inability to sent enough 8.9in, 1024 x 768 screens to Apple.
Screen …

How will television makers persuade punters to buy a new set now we all - well, most of us - have 1080p sets with internet access? We’ve already seen that 3D isn’t going to do it, but now two new alternative upgrade-driving technology are emerging - OLED and 4K - and they two are re-establishing an old battle line between …

More people watch internet-sourced video on their TVs than their PCs - at least in the US. Another sign, maybe, that the PC is losing its place at the centre of consumers' digital lives, at least for video entertainment.
According to NPD, a North American market watcher, during the past 12 months the proportion of folk …

An interesting snippet here from market watcher NPD DisplaySearch: the momentum behind 4K x 2K TVs is rather greater than that behind large OLED sets.
At least nine television makers have demo'd - some at the IFA show earlier this month - and said they will mass-produce very large LCD tellies with a 3840 x 2160 even though the …

The smartphone market will establish its maturity this year: 2012 will be the last time the shipment of handsets to new users grows.
According to figures posted by market watcher NPD DisplaySearch, smartphone shipments have been dominated by upgrade sales - handsets bought by people who already own a smartphone - but until now …

Bye-bye, plasma. Farewell, reverse projection. By 2016, the TV market will be a two-horse technology race: LED-backlit LCD and OLED.
So said market watcher NPD DisplaySearch today, forecasting sales of 281m flat-panel tellies in 2015, up from around 245m this year, itself down from 2010's 250m-unit peak.
For plasma, there's …

More tablet market bullishness, this time from research company NPD DisplaySearch. World+Dog will buy more tablets than notebooks from 2016 onwards.
Still, DisplaySearch isn't as bullish as Microsoft, which last week said it expects the market to definitively favour tablets over notebooks in 2013.
Then, some 715m mobile …

That Ultrabooks have grabbed almost 11 per cent of the $700-and-up Windows notebook market in the US during the first five months of the year sounds impressive, until you realise how small that market segment is.
The statistic above comes from US retail market watcher NPD. It said Ultrabooks' share of the $700-plus segment has …

TV makers are desperate for the Next Big Thing. It's not hard to see why: even LCD TV sales are now falling. Year-on-year LCD shipments fell for the first time ever during Q1, market watcher NPD DisplaySearch said today.
It was a small dip - down just three per cent - but symptomatic of an industry in decline. Other …

Smart TVs - tellies with internet connectivity - accounted for almost 20 per cent of the televisions that manufacturers shipped in Q1.
Almost 30 per cent of them went into Western Europe, but the world's biggest IPTV fans are clearly the Japanese: 46 per cent of the TVs that shipped there were smart devices.
Yet Japanese …

iPad sales trounced sales for netbooks and notebooks in the first quarter of 2012 pushing Apple to the dominant position in the mobile PC market, show new figures from analysts NPD.
NPD ran together tablets with netbooks and notebook PCs in their "Mobile PC category" and skyrocketing iPad sales of 13.6 million in the first …

3D television is not exciting global TV buyers, says analyst firm NPD.
While the firm notes that 3D now pops up in nearly 20% of global TV purchases for devices larger than 40 inches, Director of Industry Analysis Ben Arnold says “3D TV sales growth thus far has been more a function of the feature’s attachment to bigger …

Apple took a greater share of the tablet market during Q1 and, in a remarkable turnaround, will continue to do so through 2013, market watcher NPD DisplaySearch believes.
The exceptionally bullish DisplaySearch even reckons more tablets will ship in 2016 than notebooks.
Thus far the consensus has been that Apple's market …

Nintendo told investors last night that Sony's PlayStation 3 is leading the race in European console adoption, with the number of units snapped up exceeding sales of its own 3DS handheld, as well as those of Microsoft's Xbox 360.
Console sales in 2012 - Europe
Source: Nintendo
The company's data, revealed at a Ninty …

World TV shipments slipped last year - for the first time since 2004, said market watcher NPD DisplaySearch - presenting a picture of a business that's stalling.
The number of sets shipped during the year totalled some 247.7m units. That represents an overall decline of just a third of a percentage point on 2010's total - only …

Still think 3D TVs are popular? We hate to say it, but only ten per cent of LCD TV panels that shipped in 2011 were 3D capable.
So reveals market watcher NPD DisplaySearch, which noted that some 212m LCD TV panels shipped last year.
That said, the picture isn't entirely a poor one for 3D. Its share of LCD TV panel shipments …

Open ... and Shut
There are a million ways to over-analyse iOS versus Android market share, but one thing is often overlooked: Apple's high-margin strategy depends upon buying customers through subsidies, and may not be able to keep pace with Android's low-cost model over time.
Google's Android growth - 250 per cent in 2011 - is particularly …

iPad owners are far more likely to be able to claim they are considerably richer than you, a study of the thickness of tablet fondlers' wads has revealed.
The survey, conducted by US market watcher NPD, found that more than 40 per cent of iPad owners have a household income in excess of $100,000 (£63,250) but only 26 per cent …

Apple has again been named the world's biggest seller of mobile computers, but it wouldn't even make the top five were it not for the iPad.
Fit the fondleslab into the figures and Apple comes away with a Q4 2011 mobile PC market share of 26.6 per cent, a result of shipping 23.4m units during the quarter, market watcher NPD …

Market success is a product of two factors: supply and demand. Only when both are growing and, at the same time, closely matched will a market perform well.
The production of flat-panel displays for everything from tablets to televisions has been suffering from a period in which supply has far outstripped demand. Together, …